Mashable

The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is the hottest smartphone Samsung has ever made.

If you asked me last year to pick between the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge, I would have went with the regular, flat-screen model. The S6 Edge was definitely the sleeker of the two, but the pair of curved-glass sides and its limited "edge" features weren't enough to justify paying an extra $100.

Designing on a curve

Not including the original Note Edge, which only had one curved side, the S7 Edge is the third iteration in Samsung's Edge series phones. The S6 Edge had a 5.1-inch screen and the S6 Edge+ had a 5.7-inch screen. The S7 Edge has a 5.5-inch screen, slotting right in between those two models. As Goldilocks would say, it's just right.

Samsung's stuck with the same glass-and-metal-sandwich design it introduced with the S6. With a smoother metal frame and a cleaner joining of the curved front glass and backside with it, the S7 Edge is more comfortable to grip and use with one hand compared to the wider and taller iPhone 6S Plus. Because of the way the screen's sides curve, the phone's dimensions are smaller, which makes it more pocketable.

The curved sides of the Galaxy S7 edge actually make the device easier to grip.

Brittany Herbert/Mashable

Even better: Samsung's flattened the camera "hump" on the back; it still isn't flush with the body, but now the phone doesn't wobble as much on a flat surface.

Sticking with the same design also means fingerprints stick to the S7 Edge's glossy front and back. It's bad enough to freak a germaphobe out. Carrying a microfiber cloth is a must if you want to keep the S7 Edge as clean as possible.

The glass front and back are made from Corning Gorilla Glass 4, which is supposed to be pretty darn tough and resistant to scratches. But within just a few days of normal handling, both sides were scratched up pretty badly. My review unit was an isolated dud, according to Samsung, and it sent over a replacement that was tougher. For what it’s worth, both were retail units and not pre-production ones.

Quite the performer

The S7 Edge's Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) screen packs in 534 pixels per inch and is beyond stunning. The phone's curved sides still catch reflections and videos and photos still bend slightly along them, but I got used to it after a few days.

The S7 Edge has an "always on display" that can show the time and calendar without turning the entire screen on.

Keith Hopkin/Mashable

The S7 Edge also has a nifty "always on display," which shows the time or calendar and other widgets needing to turn on the entire screen (and waste battery life every time you do so); the Moto X did it first, but this year, everyone has an AOD, including LG's G5.

The S7 Edge is one of the first smartphones to be powered by Qualcomm's new high-performance Snapdragon 820 octa-core processor. It's supplemented by 4GB of RAM, twice as much as the iPhone 6S Plus.

I ran Geekbench 3, a commonly used processor benchmarking application, on both the S7 Edge and the iPhone 6S Plus. The 6S Plus beat the S7 Edge on the single-core test all three times, and the S7 Edge crushed the iPhone 6S Plus on the multi-core test.

Benchmark 3 scores: Galaxy S7 Edge (left) vs. iPhone 6S Plus (right).

These numbers mean nothing to people who aren't tech nerds. In plain English: The S7 Edge is in a league of its own (for now) when compared to other Android smartphones.

The S7 Edge is also a powerhouse gaming device. With a graphics chip that’s 64% faster than its predecessor, the phone ran 3D games with high-resolution graphics like Modern Combat 5, GT Racing 2 and N.O.V.A. 3: Freedom Edition like a boss. Normally, 3D games tax a phone’s CPU and GPU to such a degree that it can overheat, but the S7 Edge remained cool.<br>

TouchWiz and Edge panels

Call it iconic, familiar, or whatever you want, but to me TouchWiz looks dated. Though TouchWiz flies with the S7 Edge’s horsepower, I keep hoping Samsung will give it a much-needed redesign that’ll make it look lighter and more modern. I guess I’ll have to keep waiting.

I'll always enjoy stock Android more, like on Google's Nexus devices, but there’s no beating around the fact that TouchWiz is familiar for millions of existing Samsung users. It’s tough to let go of a design language, but as Apple proved with the reboot from iOS 6 to iOS 7, people will eventually accept it.

For now, it helps a little that Samsung's put the UI on a diet in places like the Settings app and the Quick Settings menu.

Keith Hopkin/Mashable

There's also more reason for power users to consider the S7 Edge over the S7. The S6 Edge basically had three edge features (shortcuts to your favorite contacts, apps and a nighttime clock that also displayed headlines) activated by swiping in from a tab located on the phone’s curved edge -- not enough to make it particularly useful.

Keith Hopkin/Mashable

The S7 Edge has a lot more edge coolness. You get more app shortcuts, shortcuts to specific tasks (like texting a specific person), more detailed news headlines and sports scores. Oh, and there's an awesome compass and a handy ruler widget. Basically, there's now a lot of the productivity features the original Note Edge had that made it so attractive to power users.

And now that there’s an Edge panel SDK for developers to tinker with, it’s only a matter of time before we see more of these Edge panels from third parties.

Battery Life

The S7 Edge once again has a sealed, non-removable battery. The most vocal of Android fans will shed tears, but the majority of users will get by just fine.

Samsung's included a generous 3,600 milliamp-hour (mAh) battery that lasts an entire day -- sometimes a day and half if you have your phone settings optimized just right.

With the included Fast Charger, I never feared not being able to make it through a heavy work day. Using the Fast Charger, the S7 Edge recharged from 0% to 20% in 15 minutes, to 40% in 30 minutes and to 100% in one hour and 40 minutes.

The S7 Edge also supports Fast Wireless Charging, but I didn't get to try it out.

And while I’m on the topic of charging, let’s talk about the S7 Edge’s regular ol’ Micro USB port. I understand one reason Samsung didn’t go with the new reversible USB Type-C port was to preserve compatibility with the Gear VR. But it feels like Samsung missed a big opportunity to be a leader and help accelerate USB-C’s adoption and begin transitioning people to the new port of the future. While Samsung's decision is understandable (it answers to current customers, not future ones), but it means USB Type-C will take a bit longer to become commonplace.

Cameras and 4K video recording

The iPhone got it right from the start. While other phone makers tripped over each other trying to cram in as many megapixels as possible into their phones, Apple rightly focused on image quality. At the end of the day, who cares if your pictures have more resolution if your photos look terrible?

Following this logic, Samsung smartly decided to trade in megapixels for better low-light performance and faster autofocusing.

The S7 Edge has the same cameras as the S7: 12 megapixels on the back with optical image stabilization (OIS) and 5 megapixels on the front. Compared to the iPhone 6S Plus, the S7 Edge's cameras have a wider-angle lens, which means you can capture more of the scene or fit more people into a group selfie.

The Galaxy S7 Edge's cameras seems to take photos that are yellower than the iPhone 6S Plus (right), which is more color accurate.

Raymond Wong/Mashable

Both camera lenses have an f/1.7 aperture, which lets in more light than any other smartphone camera. As a result of the faster lens, pictures taken at night or in dimly lit places are sharper.

Outdoor photos look great from both cameras. The iPhone 6S Plus edges out the S7 Edge by just a hair (see the bricks on the building in the foreground).

Raymond Wong/Mashable

Indeed, the cameras are very speedy. The S7 Edge’s camera uses what Samsung calls a “Dual Pixel sensor,” which not only helps take crisp photos, but also helps the camera lock focus onto subjects insanely fast. The autofocus is quicker than the iPhone 6S Plus.

The S7 Edge's back camera has an f/1.7 aperture lens, which lets it get shots with better bokeh (background blur).

Raymond Wong/Mashable

Pictures from the S7 Edge look fantastic. They’re bright, vibrant and have great dynamic range. You can even get some very nice bokeh (the background blur) when taking close-up shots. But the iPhone 6S Plus's cameras still beat the S7 Edge's when it comes to taking photos with accurate colors; the S7 Edge's photos have a warmer color temperature (yellower).

I took a number of selfies and compared them with ones taken with an old S6. Selfies taken in a semi-dark room were less sharp than ones taken with the S6's selfie camera, which has an f/1.9 aperture. The S6 selfie had some really undesirable chromatic aberration (the pink fringing).

I left the "beauty mode" set to its default setting ("2") and after examining the beautified selfies from both phones, I liked the S6’s more. There's more definition in the S6 selfie and the airbrushing isn't as aggressive (look at how fuzzy soft my cheeks are in the S7 Edge selfie).

The S7 Edge's Selfie flash vs. the iPhone 6S Plus's Retina flash.

Raymond Wong/Mashable

Like the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, the S7 Edge has a software-based flash feature for the front camera. It's called the Selfie Flash and it works exactly like the iPhone 6S's Retina flash. When Selfie Flash is turned on, a bright white screen flashes right before the shutter goes off, and illuminates your face. It's useful when the lighting is poor, but I wouldn’t advise using it much.

Samsung phones were some of the first ones to be able to record 4K video. Compared to 4K video from a phone like the Galaxy Note 3, 4K footage from the S7 Edge is smoother and sharper. Recording in 4K is still overkill — 1080p full HD is perfectly fine — and it eats up battery real quick, but with more 4K TVs sold every day, it's quickly becoming a feature that matters.

Fingerprint sensor

The fingerprint sensor is in the exact same place as it was on the S6: Embedded into the home button.

Adding fingerprints is easy and takes only a few seconds. To unlock the S7 Edge with your fingerprint, just press the home button and leave your finger on it. The recognition is fast and responsive. It’s even faster than the iPhone 6S’s really quick Touch ID sensor, but only by a hair.

The fingerprint sensor also works to authenticate purchases you make with Samsung Pay, Samsung's own mobile payment system, and Android Pay.

I tried Samsung Pay at a dingy Macy’s that hasn’t upgraded its payment terminals in a decade. After pulling up my credit card on the screen, I placed the phone near the terminal’s credit card slot and the payment immediately went right through, as if I had swiped a credit card.

The one advantage Samsung Pay has over other mobile payment systems like Apple Pay and Android Pay is that it works with both NFC and regular credit card terminals (using Magnetic Secure Transmission).

An Edge that's worth it

The switch to a metal-and-glass design last year meant Samsung had to drop two features that differentiated its phones from others.The first is expandable storage. The S7 Edge has a microSD card slot integrated into its SIM card tray. Since the S7 Edge only comes with 32GB of storage (8GB of which is dedicated to the OS), getting a microSD card to expand the storage is practically a must if you want to store lots of apps, music, photos and videos. The S7 Edge can take microSD cards up to 2TB. Good lucking finding one, though, because memory cards in that size aren’t yet commercially available. SanDisk sells a 200GB microSD card ($80 on Amazon), which is pretty darn cheap.

Brittany Herbert/Mashable

The other feature that’s made a triumphant return is weather sealing. The S7 Edge is IP68 dust- and water-resistant, meaning it can be submerged in up to five feet of water for up to 30 minutes.

I used the phone in the rain and snow, in the shower and even tested it out in a swimming pool and it still worked afterwards. The best part about the water resistance is that there aren’t any annoying flaps covering the ports.

What the future looks like

At the time, most people weren’t sure what to make of the S6 Edge. Its curved glass and Edge panels were more gimmick than must-have feature.

But with the unofficial standardization of smartphone design and components, Samsung’s Edge phones are the only truly different looking phones out there. The LG G5’s modular design may be revolutionary, but when its hatch is closed it still looks like other devices.

The S7 Edge still costs extra over the S7, but you’re actually getting more this time around. It’s got a bigger screen, longer battery life and Edge panels that are actually useful. And the phone’s striking design is still one helluva conversation starter.